Also, good domain knowledge will help in conjunction with this course, to create sound instructional material. And, of course, as always Practice makes Perfect!

So IDs in India are going through a two month training program? I guess that makes sense for basic eLeaning, if a person can follow formulas for presentation, and it is better than the weekend seminars some people use in the US. But to become a full instructional designer one needs more training than that, and at least a year of regular ID training and work is required in my experience before a new ID even knows the basics well enough to construct good training materials.

Thank you all for writing in your thoughts here.

This is what I think:

Freshers need to gain some basic skills to get started with their work.

They need to get productive and do that which the business demands.

It takes sometime and quite a lot of experience to become a good ID.

Gaining good skills depends a lot on the work environment, the kind of influences one has at work, motivation and interest levels and other factors.

Freshers do not need certificates or high level knowledge or skills to get started with ID.

Freshers need to keep reading, learning, participate and attend ID sessions, start blogging.

Training… the act of imparting (or making available the resources) for a person to develop knowledge, Skills or competencies (among other things).

So… how do we train the fresher IDs? (we do require them – thats for sure)

I would start (like in any learning solution that I develop) by identifying what is the expected performance from these resources.

A fresher ID (depending on which company they are in) will be required (as their first tasks) to:
- Take screenshots using a tool – and stitch them together using some tool. (companies that focus on simulation training)
- Take a look at some content – take a look at the design documentation – get a ‘download’ from the Sr. ID and then ‘script’ a storyboard (an oxymoron if there was one). (small firms)
- Follow the lead on a pre-existing project… and turn out something similar to what has already been done. (companies with large ongoing projects)
- Be thrown out into the open ocean and told to figure out how to survive in this field. (companies just starting out with the eLearning division / new firms – in this case you never know if you are cutting edge or blunt(?) edge)

Come to think of it… these are relatively simple tasks – and we don’t need to know all those ID theories or have the skills that more senior IDs have… it is a matter of being able to perform some simple tasks.

Learning to be an ID is a long term process – and much of it HAS to be through experiences… it is an implicit learning that HAS to go through the whole unconscious incompetence > conscious incompetence > conscious incompetence > conscious competence cycle…

It is when you manage to get to reflective competence that you get to be a good mentor…

And this cycle HAS to happen for each task, skill, competency that you master… you will be on different levels for different things at different things in your career – there is no end to this ‘training cycle’ so to speak…

And considering there is no ‘end’ to this training – IDs (like many other professions, teachers, leaders, musicians) require SOME skills to start off – but will pick up more based on environment, influences, interest, dedication (to the craft), and half a zillion other factors.

Some are prodigies that sustain.. some are prodigies that don’t… some get by with hard work… and some remain in the background… or perhaps fade away…?

Nuf said – I have to get back to a shit load of work… let me know what you guys think

-A

I just thought we should go back to the original context of the discussion, which is really about ID education.

I’m sure you’re coming from experience and I don’t want to discount that — this said, I’m confident that with the right objectives in mind you can find a balance for cost and execution. In any case, it would be impractical to debate this over electronic media with an absolute lack of data points and case studies.

On the other hand, companies like Ken Blanchard and Dale Carnegie sell productized trainings that sell for as much as 1500 euros per seat. These companies require experienced professionals.

So, if you need consultant profiles, you need to hire such guys, and such people will always be expensive. You cannot manufacture such people out of any training programs in this world.

But if you are a company that has a requirement to hire junior Ids because of business and money reasons, then you need to train them and you want them to start producing some work as soon as possible.
The sum of people employed by small e-learning companies is far larger than all the big boys put together. So, a training method to get people producing faster is always beneficial and good for business.
And the majority of the employee population will be junior Ids and not experienced IDs.

And taking your idea of training Trainers and Facilitators into IDs, this is a career option for them but is not a solution for the resource challenges for the e-learning industry.

Given these facts, your prescription is not practical because it will be very expensive and difficult to execute.Please get real.

IMO, turning freshers into “productive professionals” in 2 months is optimistic to say the least. You can make them “elearning-monkeys” (no disrespect), but not Instructional Designers.

Lastly, IMO Instructional Design is a consulting job. Influence is a part of consultant’s toolkit and I don’t know how we can separate these soft skills from the core skills of doing their jobs.

You can’t guarantee that a single influence pattern will work in all situations – there are context specific influence patterns though. So I struggle to understand the guarantee you’re talking about. Use the right pattern and you have a near-guarantee!

For example, when you learn music you learn simple songs first. When you start coding, you start with a Hello World and then go onto other smaller simpler programs.

If your goal is to train a set of people new to ID and turn them into productive professionals in say 2 months, then you must give it to them in small doses. Setting challenging goals is a good way to organize the training and motivate the learner, but drowning them with impossible challenges is a recipe for disaster.

Typically, understanding the big picture comes with experience. It is true that e-learning is a lot more than just creating courses, but you cannot ask a trainee ID to make the equivalent of a 9m long jump in the first few days or weeks or even years. It takes time to get good at anything and you cannot fast track this.

People are not made equal and any training must take into account whether a trainee can assimilate the content at the pace you have set. And starting a training with human psychology and not simple elearning is not a good idea because letting people learn through mistakes is a proven way to learn. Keep it simple, stupid! That is a principle and not a dig at anybody .

Keep your training simple.

And finally, Suggestions like influencing employers might not work for everybody as it is too situation specific (company culture, manager and trainee personality, and other variables) and cannot be guaranteed to work always and it has nothing to do with learning instructional design.